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Aware People are Supportive People: Movember

I know I said I wouldn’t post again, but any excuse to avoid going outside on this beautiful Spring afternoon.

I realized while rereading my Movember posts from last year, plus a post from earlier this year, that my posts on depression were kind of, well, depressing.

So, where is the good news?

Here’s some around people understanding depression and more importantly with that understanding facilitating recovery.

Manager that didn’t understand

When I wrote the post about Depression in the Workplace it was with vivid memories of a manager that while professionally-supportive didn’t understand the long term nature of mental illness.

In my case, my wife suffering with mental illness and myself being dragged into depression, it was a difficult time for everyone, a situation that we were going to need a while to recover from.

This included frustration at me missing a couple of hours each week or fortnight to visit a shrink, let alone me coming in occasionally late or rushing out early.

Likewise although my manager was aware of my situation, he never shared my situation with my coworkers or other managers, leaving them to form their own ideas about my erratic behavior.

In the end I was a bee’s dick from termination (maybe closer… I called for a last minute stay of termination) and my team mates were very disillusioned and felt I was letting them down at every test.

New Managers

For over a year now I have had not one but two new managers. The senior manager has been around for a long time and I know he was aware of my bad performance, but not my situation prior to becoming my manager.

The 1st getting to know you meeting I had with each of the managers, I explained my battles with mental illness, my ex-wife’s battles and my determination to stay well and perform at a high level.

I really had no idea how good these managers were until my ex-wife’s attempted suicide that I mentioned briefly in Better Off without me.

Support

The Monday morning after my wife’s attempt, I sent a text message to my boss informing him of the lost weekend of work (which was an issue as we were on a tight time frame and this put us back a week), as well as the events with my ex-wife.

Moments after I arrived in the office my manager took me into a meeting room and told me to go home and sort things out – taking as long as I needed. Once I explained that my ex had been hospitalized and I preferred to continue working until the moment I needed to leave without notice, he accepted this.

He did one more thing, which was to gauge how I felt about letting the whole team aware of the basic situation. Of course I was happy for him to share as much a he needed.

About an hour later I was summoned to another meeting room, this time by the more senior manager. He also told me to go home, and not come back until I was ready. Likewise once I explained my intentions, he gave me leave to come and go as I needed.

As for the lost week of work – it was irrelevant. Any time… any time I had to choose between work and family, I was to choose family with their direct approval.

Each day I was asked how I was, how Odin was, how my ex was, even how my ex’s partner was coping (a lot of my energy early on went to supporting my ex’s partner as the experience left him reeling and depressed).

About a week after the suicide attempt, my senior manager called to me to his desk to review a list of symptoms on his PC. After reading the symptoms and confirming my ex experienced all but one, he told me to grab a meeting room and call my ex’s psychiatrist.

You see my ex-wife had been misdiagnosed with depression years ago and thus ha been receiving the wrong treatment. With my boss’ assistance, I was able to assist her doctor in finding the correct treatment.

Coworker support

As I mentioned earlier, nothing was hidden from my coworkers and they were aware that I had the full support of two levels (actually it was 3 levels as the department head was also aware and supportive) of the organization.

I could talk freely with them, they could talk freely with me. We discussed progress, they never once said a thing, nor even a raised eyebrow, if I arrived late, or left early.

Clock watcher

Have you ever hand a clock watching manager?

My last couple have been clock watchers. My current one is a horror, as he is normally at work about 7.30am, so he knows.

I officially start at 8:30am, but apart from 3, maybe 4 days this year I haven’t been in before 9, with 9:30 probably being the average.

I’ve only seen him tap his watch 3, maybe 4 times this year – those were the days I was on time, quickly followed by a cheeky smirk.

Flexibility

Of course I gave something in exchange. What I gave was the offer to work outside of office hours, whenever required. By this I mean at 6pm if someone called. At 3am if someone called from London.

My workplace gave me, continues to give me, nearly 12 months down the track, the flexibility I require to maintain my and my family’s mental health. In return I give them the flexibility to operate on two hemispheres.

Win/Win

Performance

So my performance review results are in.

Two years ago I was bottom of the rung, being prepped for termination. Within the afore mentioned bee’s dick of losing my job, and to be honest, that would have been the last straw for me.

This year I received the highest performance result possible. Something neither of my bosses have seen before. My senior manager stroked my performance outcome while they gave me the news.

This was a great result for me.
This was a great result for them.
This was a great result for our team.

It was a result achieved by me while dealing with all the dramas that surround mental illness.

This is evidence that being open and accepting about mental illness in a workplace can have excellent results.

The difference.

There are a few key differences this time around.

For one thing I have been a lot more vocal in the last couple of years about mental illness. I haven’t hid anything. So rather than leaving my coworkers wondering why I am erratic, I have worked with them so that we can perform better as a team.

Then there are my managers. My previous manager is an excellent person, but one that lacked the understanding of my current managers.

One of them has a sibling with disabilities. The sibling has had the disabilities all their life, thus my manager is accustomed to the idea that some illnesses are long term. Adjustments need to be made, but life can still continue with appropriate support.

The other, the senior manager, just happens to be married to a psychiatrist. Fortunately for my ex, my boss’s wife specializes in the illness my ex suffers from. This is why this manager knew what to show me on the web. This is why he understands that this won’t be fixed overnight.

They understand.

So I am well, mentally, physically and I am maintaining my employment.

Odin is well and can discuss the illness that mummy has in her head, that mummy sees doctors for to help her become well. He plays games where he puts the pieces of a patients mind back together in the right places, just as the doctors are with his mummy.

His mummy is well. Occasionally she hits a wall, but she’s also prepared to call for help, whether it’s me or Lifeline.

She knows now that she has lost years of her life, her marriage and several jobs due to mental illness.

What is important is she knows she didn’t lose this things because of who she is, but rather from a condition that went untreated.

Now she is receiving treatment, as hard as it is at times, she now has a future and a million reasons to live.

Her friends are supportive.

Her family is supportive

Her workplace is supportive.

There is no need for shame and secrets as mental illness is as normal as a broken arm.

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13 Responses

wow, have i missed your regular posts. when you put serious thoughts to pixels, you always write great stuff. i didn’t think your previous years’ posts were depressing at all, btw — they were honest, open, cleansing, and i am sure very helpful for both you and others to read. honesty always wins. nice to see you around, as always. i look forward to more posts!

I just thought in general they tackled the challenges, the difficulties in living with mental illness, but didn’t reflect well enough that one can not just survive, but prosper and succeed while living with mental illness.

Which is kind of obvious when you hear of so many great successful people that have been challenged with mental illness, yet still been high achievers… but like all comparisons to great people, it is hard to identify oneself in their achievements.

So, I present to you the success story of someone that has lived with depression for 30 odd years personally and struggled to keep family and employment together in the face of further mental illness.

Most importantly, to highlight that being able to speak about mental illness, where it matters – in the workplace – and be supported by your colleagues can make a huge difference.

Don’t feel worthless if you suffer quietly in the workplace.

Don’t discard an employee or colleague in the workplace.

If a person can battle themselves on a daily basis and still win, imagine their power if you could redirect that energy at a common enemy, or issue.

Mate, this post is a big part of why I donated to Movember in your name. Stories about how things can be are amazingly powerful – I’m seriously tempted to send this post to a bunch of people I work with – and I want to acknowledge that is some way.

Feel free to distribute this post and the others from last year. I know I struck a lot of cords last year as I managed to capture the struggles that many feel as well as the desperation as life comes crashing down.

As I said then.. if it helps people to understand they are dealing with mental illness, or helps others to recongise it in those they love – and now hopefully with this post, realise that mental illness is not a direct path for the trash heap, then I have succeeded more than any monetary donations ever could.

I look forward to the day where people are just as likely to tell their friends, family and colleagues that they are suicidal as they are to complain about a head cold.

Ha, apparently “nice post!” is the equivalent to “spam, spam, spam, spam” as far as the spam filter goes… luckily the human spam filter realises you were the 1st to comment on this series of posts 12 months ago.

As I was reading this post I realized more and more that we are in different universes you and me .
In my job that will never happen as soon I started to get late I would be fired for sure, and how cold people here are, nobody cares for anything, only if we live it do we come aware that this situations exist.

Its like we live in a all different place an not in this word.
How can we call us as Human being when we are so different ?

I am happy that you leave in a great place and surrounded whit amazing Human beings, that understand what you fight whit and live whit .

And ashamed to be where I am and, see what I see, Indifference rules above all here, because we also have so many bad examples of people asking for help in a cause, and we later find out that that people robed us all.

So I can only applause your initiative and, wend I arrive home I will contribute what I can.

I want to make a differences and fell that at least once I did the right thing.

Wow, sorry to hear that. Just shows how fortunate I have been, not just at my current job (with all my bosses) but all of my jobs (well most anyway, haven’t needed to test the care and feeding of depression at all of them) over 26 years.

I’m sure it’s a difficult balancing act for managers, to support someone, having faith that they will give their all, while receiving what they need. I have no doubt there are times that people will use this to their advantage and take more, as much as they can.

In an ideal world… well, they are bloody hard to find.

We are lucky that there is a lot of legislation designed to protect rights, lucky that as a general rule we are the land of the “fair go” and looking after the underdog. Lucky that as a general rule, we live by the “do unto others…” and appreciate, that one day it may be “done unto ourselves”.

Slightly off track… but I was having a discussion to someone the other day about medicare (universal government medical care) and unemployment benefits here. My philosophy has always been to pay into the system (not that I have a choice), be happy that I am supporting others through their life trials… because when the boot is on the other foot, the safety net is there for me, without pain, without guilt… as I have already paid for it (or will, once I am back on my feet).

As someone who is currently in the depths of my own mental illness, I love that you are writing about this. I was misdiagnosed years ago with depression, was treated for depression for years and when they finally got my diagnosis right, my whole world changed. The boss I currently work for has been beside me the whole time, supporting me as we fiddle with my meds to get just the right cocktail for me to live a productive life.

How my own mental illness affects my job, my husband, my family and my play time is something that I still struggle to deal with. Just last night I had a major meltdown over a raid. I can’t take back what happened and I can’t get people to understand that sometimes this happens. I become completely irrational and lose my mind. Even my husband gets annoyed when I freak out like that. However, he doesn’t yell or shake me or anything, he expresses his concern (because over all, he feels concern that I won’t snap out of it) and then when I’m ‘myself’ again, talks to me about how what I heard or saw wasn’t supposed to be taken the way I interpreted.

And honestly, after 20 years of fighting this, saying “Well, I have bipolar disorder” sounds like an excuse. I feel that I should ‘get better’ but I haven’t. I can treat the symptoms but the underlying cause will never go away. It’s so frustrating. Those are the days that I think “I will never be normal” and start to cry, no, start to sob. And those are the bad days. But I always have someone telling me “This too shall pass” and they hold my hand and help me through.

Those people who support and are aware of the world of mental illness are God sends and I love them more than anything. And of course, now I am crying because as I said, I’m in the depths and I’m alone. But it will pass. It always passes.